Further Listening: HERE
5. A Hell Of A Good New Single From Hello Shark
Emerging from Vermont’s thriving DIY-scene some twenty years ago, Hello Shark is the project of songwriter Lincoln Halloran. It’s been six years since the world last heard new music from Hello Shark, courtesy of a rarities collection, and a decade since his last album proper, 2016’s Delicate. Thankfully, this week brought the long-anticipated news of new music from Lincoln, as he announced his signing to Father/Daughter Records and shared a brand-new single, In Hell.
Described by Lincoln as “an attempt to create a more overtly pop-minded, jangle-driven song”, In Hell does what all the best returns do, nodding to an artist’s past while still pushing it forward. An always observational songwriter, here Lincoln has created a song that exists in the aftermath of our lowest ebbs. He throws us straight into the scene, “that night outside the Dolphin, I was having so much trouble walking”, instantly sending us all to our youthful late-night boozer of choice, full of angst and young romance. From there he introduces us to the song’s focus, a room-splitting figure with, “eyes like heaven”, even at her lowest ebb. Without ever really spelling out his relationship to his unnamed protagonist, something about Lincoln’s crooning slow-core delivery makes you know they’ve got a past. Throughout, he observes them with a sense of an ever-growing distance. By the close of the song, he’s too removed to even know what’s going on in their life, as he almost trails off on the question, “are you still in hell? Or are you still?” It’s the kind of song that leaves you wanting to know more, wanting to scour every liner note on his upcoming record for the puzzle pieces that make this atmospheric scene make sense. Whether he’ll give us the answers, we’ll have to wait and see. For now, just let your intrigue swell. Hello Shark have got their teeth into my brain, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
In Hell is out now via Father/Daughter Records. For more information on Hello Shark visit https://linktr.ee/helloshark
4. Wasuremono Won’t Make A Song And Dance About It
Over the last decade, Wasuremono, and songwriter William Southward, has gradually been making musical waves from the most unlikely of settings, a garden shed in Bradford-On-Avon. From those most inauspicious of beginnings, the band, whose name translates from Japanese as something forgotten, have won praise from everyone from The Guardian to Steve Lamacq, and even appeared on the soundtrack for the latest series of Netflix hit, Heartstopper. Four years on from William’s last album, 2022’s Are You Ok, Wasuremon are currently gearing up towards the release of their new record, Me and the Noise, as this week they shared the latest single from it, No More Dancing.
The last song William wrote for Me and the Noise, No More Dancing, is a song of deliberate contrasts, as he explains, “the melody feels joyous and dance-like, while the lyrics are saying exactly the opposite”. I shouldn’t start any review of this track without a minor disclaimer: it does include the phrase boogie-woogie on multiple occasions, but, hear me out, it’s so goddam catchy you’ll be too busy air punching to care. The song throughout has the feel of a joyous indie-disco classic, like the middle ground of New Order and Belle & Sebastian, as tumbling synths and clattering drums accompany William’s tale of melancholy and inescapable dancing,“through the smoke we both glow under the disco lights. Baby I’ve never felt this so damn alive”. The song seems to flip between memories and the here and now, the verses remembering Northern Soul and inhibition-breaking, smoke-filled rooms, and the choruses dragged down by ageing and responsbility, “there’ll be no more dancing on the dance floor, no more boogie-woogie, there’ll be no more new romancing in the dance hall, no more boogie-woogie”. This is a song peppered with reasons why it shouldn’t really work, yet in William’s sheer conviction it does. Boogie-on Wasuremono, plenty of people still need a soundtrack for falling in love, throwing lusty glances and furious, unrestrained dancing.
Me and the Noise is out August 21st via Revolver Records. For more information on Wasuremono visit https://www.wasuremono.co.uk/
3. Sad Cypress Is Going To Mean A Lot To You
An artistic outlet for Cardiff’s Sophie Cartmell, Sad Cypress is a multi-disciplinary project, combining musical offerings with self-published zines and self-drawn artworks. In 2023, Sophie released her debut album Magic Mountain, which, alongside shows across South Wales and South West England, has provided Sad Cypress with an ever-growing fanbase. For her next move, Sophie recently shared her new EP, Princess of Cups, a record built around a narrative she wrote in Waterloo Gardens, which became both an album and an accompanying piece of literature. With the album out in the world, this week Sad Cypress shared the latest AA single from it, Sirens and my personal favourite, It Means A Lot To Me.
A distinclty personal missive, It Means A Lot To Me is a nice contrast to Sirens, with its sub one-minute, rewriting of mythology with Sirens re-cast as people who just want some time to sing their own songs and don’t care for the sailors’ attention. Sophie is quick to cast It Means A Lot To Me as a song from the heart, “a very spiritual song, finding comfort in something that needs more than normal language to communicate”. Musically, it’s built around a repeated piano motif; it’s earthy sincerity grounding the whole thing as Sophie’s vocal play out like a spell, drawing all the unspoken spirits to the surface as she tried to make sense of the inexplicable. Alongside the likes of Eleanor Moss and Natalie Wildgoose, Sad Cypress is one of a recent crop of fabulous female voices making music in the folk spectrum, while making it entirely their own, and in doing so breathing some thrilling new life into sounds as old as the hills.
Princess of Cups is out now. For more information on Sad Cypress visit https://www.sadcypress.co.uk/
2. Here’s The Hot Stoop On The Tubs
Something of a regular feature around these parts, The Tubs are the Celtic jangle boyband arm of the Gob Nation collective, and a vehicle for the songwriting of former Joanna Gruesome and Ex-Vöid member, Owen Williams. The band’s last offering, Cotton Crown, was one of the sleeper hits of 2025, gradually winning acclaim from pretty much everyone with its, in their own words, “navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor, and the indignities of grief and OCD”. Now freshly signed to Merge Records, the band will return in September with Hard Life, a record that picks up from Cotton Crown and then subverts it entirely with Owen’s second inner voice entering with little time for the first, “haranguing him for his self-indulgence and immaturity; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly”. Ahead of Hard Life’s arrival, this week the band shared the latest single from it, Stoop To Me.
Described by Owen as Tubs, “at our most power-pop“, with knowing nods to Bob Mould, and a, “cider-drunk quality via the fiddle parts“. To balance that out, Owen wrote the lyrics from an, even by his own standards, intriguing perspective, “a demented cuckold who keeps changing his story mid-chorus“. As ever with The Tubs, to the musical fore is some excellent guitar interplay, the rhythmic hum of the acoustic fading in and out of the brighter, janglier electric lead-line, made even glossier by waves of fiddle, which have a distinct droning quality almost reminiscent of a harmonium. Atop these layered melodies and the propulsive splatter of the rhythm section, Owen seems to revel in his poppier instincts, even channelling a little of Michael Stipe’s poetic romanticism as he sings, “baby you know I’m a patient guy, I can take a couple lonely nights, waiting for the day you see, the day you stoop to me”. Now well established as one of Britain’s most intriguing guitar band, The Tubs show no sign of resting on their laurels. Their subtle evolution from one record to the next will delight fans new and old. It might be a hard life, but music this good makes everything that little bit easier.
Hard Life is out September 11th via Merge Records. For more information on The Tubs visit https://linktr.ee/thetubs.
1. Another Single About Noting From Adam Hopper & the Wimps
Previously known for his work with Mancunian post-punk outfit Blanketman, Adam Hopper started performing solo in 2022, leaning into his more wistful and folkish tendencies as he set out to find, “hope and fantasy in the everyday and seemingly benign”. In 2023, he brought to together a band of Sheffield-based friends, aka The Wimps, to bring his songs to life, the five-piece bands performing across the North. In 2025 they teamed up with the ever-brilliant Bingo Records to release their EP, Remember To Have Fun, and they’ll combine again in September for the release of their self-titled album. Ahead of the release, this week saw the band share the latest single from it, Another Story About Nothing.
Something of a live favourite, from a band who’ve always prioritised playing live, Another Story About Nothing is the sound of The Wimps at full throttle. While much of the band’s output falls into the ever-loose anti-folk box, Another Story About Nothing eschews that in favour of tinges of glam rock, with the band acknowledging a nod to, “the way the Modern Lovers lent their grunt to Jonathan Richman’s romantic observations”. The song enters with a Belle & Sebastien-like flourish of acoustic guitars, indefatigable drums and wavering swells of synth, and stays in that mood of wistful optimism throughout. Atop it, Adam seems to inhabit a different headspace, a song that’s fittingly about nothing in particular, and equally about everything. We find Adam clinging onto something as it fades into the distance. With batteries running low, he searches, “around your bedroom floor for something more to say, that might help to make you stay”, while knowing that, mentally at least, “you’re gone, and it’s too late”. An upbeat shuffling pop song about heartache kicking you in the gut; it might not be the most original idea, but when it sounds this good, you’ll be having far too much fun to notice.
Adam Hopper & the Wimps is out September 25th via Bingo Records. For more information on Adam Hopper & the Wimps visit https://linktr.ee/itsadamhopper.
Header photo is Adam Hopper & The Wimps by Gabbi Goldman (@gabbo_film).
